Up Against It
by Shadows In My Love
Summary: Hey there, all of you! This is one of my stories 'bout Lost Souls, in which the caracters Zillah, Nothing, Molochai and Twig are owned by their magnificent creator: Poppy Z Brite!


The higher you fly

the further you fall

Up against it

Look left, then right

And run for your life

....

__

In this exciting story, Nothing decides to invite a former member of our Lost Souls gang, Jay to meet them again for reasons still unknown.

Jay got kicked out by Zillah, because of betraying them for a kill.

But Jay doesn't want to deal with them anymore.

Now the hunt has begun...

Or hasn't it?

Chapter I: **Delusions of Grandeur**

I rested my head against the window, wanting to cool my burning, feverish forehead on the cool, clear glass, but the window was grubby and warm and only served to make my head hurt more. In the reflection I saw a few smudges of dirt that were splashed over the tops of my cheeks like a nightmarish rouge, shadowing and accenting in the most model of spots.

I watched the landscape whiz by indifferently, fields of yellow, straw-like plants slipping past, filthy and neglected looking through the smudgy window. I wound the glass down slowly, a breath of dry dusty wind spraying in my face, filling my longs with the grainy, abrasive sand of small towns and infinite boredom. The others were singing loudly around me, spilling vodka and profanity in the van, wrestling in the heap of empty wrappers, empty drunken bottles and dirty clothes, crushing each other against the wreckage of last night's alcohol fuelled revelry.

I definitely wasn't drunk enough, wasn't well enough to really get drunk or get angry about the amount of vodka that the boys were sloshing around the van, around their stuff, over my resting figure. I was too full of dread and nausea to peek into the back of the packed van, to watch the three boys who were now entwined in a heady mixture of sex, vodka and rotting food. Molochai tried to pull me into the carnal tangle. I waved him away with a slight flick of the wrist and closed my eyes and ears against the van and the long, endlessly yellow fields against the straight, rolling asphalt road that led them towards the cause of the swirling in my head and the wrenching of my stomach.

Had it been a good idea to invite Jay to meet us again? 

After he got kicked out by Zillah? I didn't knew, and I didn't wanted to think about it.

__

In a New Orleans parking line...

"How long are we gonna be in this shithole for?' Zillah dug his heels into the sand, twisting and grinding the shell of an insect. He didn't know what insect it was. He'd never cared much about insects. He'd never cared much about humans. It was all the same to him, all part of the job.

'I want to live here' I had slipped into dream mode again, they could all see it, could all hear it in the softened lilt of my herb tinted voice, by the way that I allowed my hair to hang over my face, by the way that I stroked the van absently. Zillah hugged me tightly from behind, pulling in the scent of my neck, the thick smell of heat and dust filling his senses and diffusing into his blood. The old men glanced at us momentarily, taking in this display with a slight shrug of the shoulders. _*Just another couple of long haired faggots, no danger there...*_ That's what their minds seemed to said to me, and I was more than relieved to not to have to fight off another mob of queer-bashers.

'You say that everywhere we go! You want to live everywhere!' Molochai laughed, taking a giant sip from the vodka bottle. Zillah tousled my hair playfully, then leaving me leaning against the silent, cooling van to grab the bottle from Molochai.

It was true, I never liked to leave a place. I wasn't like my carefree boyfriend, I wanted roots, never had them before. However, this place seemed rather familiar but not in a de ja vu way. I didn't feel as though I personally belonged here, I did not imagine any bond between myself and these houses with the cracked, wooden porches and overgrown gardens.

"How..." Before I could finish my sentence, the door of the car next to us flies open. Out walks Jay, decked out in the height of fashion, including a fur and leather jacket. 

"Well, well, well, what have we here?" He rhetorically asks to the four vampires.   
"Running a bit late, Jay?" I ask from my place in Zillah's arms.  
"Fashionably late, Nothing, dear. Not that you would know anything about that. And the name's Jaycee."  
I clutch my hands into fists, but Zillah wraps his arms around my waist and holds on tightly. 

"Nothing invited you here to make amends," Twig explains.  
"Aw, how sweet of our shy little Nothing-boy." 

He finally sees me and stares, a bit shocked at my appearance. "My, my. You've changed." I nod in agreement. 

"You too. You look expensive. How come?" Jay ignored the kindness in Molochai's question. His gaze drifted over my pointed shoulders, resting on the sharp face of that young teenager with dyed black hair and dirty clothes that was I. 

The murky eyes he had seen almost a year ago, blackened with lots of eye shadow. The black T-shirt was a tad too big for my painfully narrow frame, exposing the smooth top of my sleek pale arms.

Jay then turns his attention to Twig. "Ah, Twig, you're alive! Didn't try to kill yourself, did ya?"  
"Uh, no, I'm still alive." Twig sends Jay an angry look. "Can't you see?"   
"Great. At least you're smarter than Molochai here, overdosing on Valium. Here's a hint: shoot yourself. You'll get better results."  
"Why you fucking bastard..."   
Molochai attempts to get to Jay, but Twig holds him back. "Molochai, don't."

"If you want to, just tear his heart out. I don't care." The calm, lush voice of Zillah says. He sways his long caramel colored hair back on his back and smiles slyly at Jay.  
"Ah, and Zillah! I guess Nothing's your bitch now, huh? You haven't trashed the first or you get yourself another, eh?"  
Zillah's face burns red with rage, but he denies himself response so as to not pleasure Jay with his anger. "Nothing is my son." Is the only thing he says.

I remain motionless, blinking in disbelief at Jay's behavior. 

"You know what, Jay? When I told me why he invited us all here, do you know what I thought?" Zillah asks.  
"Hm, probably about the best sexual position you could try in a toilet."  
"No!" Zillah growls furiously. "I thought that I could finally see you and kill you for that night you betrayed us."  
Jay thinks for a moment, taking in what Zillah has just said. "Okay. Am I supposed to even care? The Pretty Vampire King shows emotion to me...is this supposed to make me feel special?"  
"I can't fucking do this!" Twig screams, rising from his seat on the dusty ground.   
"Twig!" Molochai shouts.  
"No, Molochai. We were all quite happy here until he showed up! I can't stand it!" He turns to Jay. "Why don't you just leave?!"  
"I think I might. After all, I left before, and that was probably the best decision I've ever made." Jay looks at his watch, which appears to be diamond encrusted and very expensive. "You've taken up enough of my precious time." He turns and walks towards his car.  
Finally, I gained the courage to speak. "Jay!"   
Jay turns, surprised. "So, you can speak!"  
My pallid skin deepens to a rosy hue at his rude comment, but I stand firmly. "Jay, ever since you got here, you've been a bastard."  
Jay pulls out a cigarette, lights it, and takes a drag. "Thank you, darling." He exhales slowly. "Hasn't this already been said? You're boring me. Now I see why you don't talk."  
I try to respond, but I cannot. Jay turns again to depart. "You're just a coward!" I scream. My hands immediately shoot up to cover my mouth, shocked by my words.  
"What?" Jay narrows his eyes at me.  
I remove my hands from their place on my face. "A coward. You're scared to show feelings to us because you're afraid of being hurt again! So you put on this act of being a total bastard so that there's an excuse for not caring. If they don't care about you, you don't have to care, and you don't get hurt! Guess what, Jay? We all don't care about you, so we won't get hurt also!" Completely ignoring breathing during my passionate speech, I gasp for breath at the end. Everyone stares at me in awe; I feel myself blushing again.  
"A-a-are you done?" Jay stutters.  
"Yes." I respond, almost visibly sinking down lower into my skin.

"Good. Bye then." And so Jay closes the door on them and his past.

"Good going, Nothing! I just loved being slaughtered by that son of a bitch!" Zillah hissed like a snake.

"Sorry." I attempted a grin, which came out most melancholic and feeble.

But I knew, sorry wasn't going to be enough. Not enough to please Zillah.

"Sorry? Sorry? ! You're SORRY? !!!" Zillah jumps up. "You get us into all this shit and you think simply "sorry" is enough to make up with? Well, then you're fucking wrong, boy!"

I try to stop him. "It wasn't at all my fault! At least, I didn't saw you do anything to make it work out!"

"O yeah?" Zillah grabbed my shoulders, and jerked me painfully towards him. He hissed in my ear: "I think I'd rather have Jay, than you…"

I suddenly felt a cold flame of rage burn inside me. Although he was my father, my lover and my guardian, he really didn't care about my feelings at all. He had taunted me time after time again.

And now it had been enough..

"Fuck off, Zillah!"   
"What? !" I saw Zillah's eyes light up in the darkness of the van. I heard Molochai en Twig giggle from one of the corners. 

"Well, I'm ever so sorry, Your Majesty, Nothing! Hope I didn't hurt your feelings, did I? " Zillah smiled an evil, heart stopping smile, and looked me deep in the eyes. I suddenly felt cold. But it didn't stop me.   
"Oh, I'm so hurt! Insulted by Zillah the sex symbol! Why don't you just go fuck Jay or something?"

I had hoped that Zillah would get mad, or something. That at least he would hit me. But none of that all happened.

He just stood there, in the dark. A small figure, who stood there like he was at least tree foot tall, up straight and like a king. 

"Well, I think that's a better job for you, don't you think? It's quite obvious who's the whore here.." He taunted.  
"Shut the fuck up!" I had hurled myself at Zillah, but Twig caught me just before I hit the green eyed vampire. I, although tightly embraced by Twig, was still clawing and screaming insanely at Zillah.

But he only smiled and turned away from me. 'Throw him out. He needs to cool down.' Was all he said. 

"Sounds really fucking good to me!" I screamed back, completely out of my mind.  
The next thing I could remember, was the white snow, almost invisible against my pale skin. 

I sat up. Why? Was the only question in my numb mind. Why? Why?

I decided to wander in the French Quarters. What else could I do? This time I really felt like a lost soul, wandering the streets in the dark, lightened up by the white snow covering me.

I found a tiny bar in the corner of the Quarter. I walked in for food, but I wasn't hungry at all.

All I needed were cigarettes and alcohol. This depression was seeping deep into my soul. I needed to feel something else than this, something had to fill that empty void. I had to get drunk to feel better? Then so be it. I eagerly ordered an entire bottle of Jack Daniel's and drank it straight. My throat felt raw by the time I finished it, but I didn't care. What did I care about? Nothing. I couldn't think at all. My vision was blurring, partially from the whiskey, part from the tears in my eyes. I cried, and I didn't care.

'Hé, Nothing?'

Far away, I hear that familiar voice ringing in my head.

'Nothing!'

I still can't move. Although I really want to, my body feels frozen and numb.

A warm hand on my face. That voice again. 'Jééésus, Nothing! Are ya sick?'

First I move my arm. Then my head. I open my eyes.

'Hé, you're alive!' There stands Jay, in a warm velvet coat.

He takes it off, and puts it around me. 

I start shivering, and pull it tighter around my thin body.

Then I see the many questions in Jay's eyes. 'What are ya doing here in the middle of winter, sleeping in the Quarter? !'Jay cries out. 'They didn't threw you out, did they? !'

I say nothing. Jay looks at me. "How come he looks so bad…?" A voice in his head whispers.

Nothing's face is still there, yet upon inspecting it, he seems somehow different than he had looked the last time Jay had seen him. The black rings under his eyes reveal that he has not slept in days. There is a tinge of sadness in his voice and eyes when he speaks. 

The sadness on his feature is almost unbearable.

'Tell me what happened..' Jay asked kindly, still not being the complete bastard he was last time.

I look up at him, shaking my head. I still couldn't speak. I felt cold.

I then feel something pressing against my hipbone.

I turn to my lovely little brown paper bag and get out a bottle of liquor. Zillah always used to say that I was a drunk; he should see me now. I don't even bother to get a glass...I drink it straight from the bottle. The cool liquid burns my throat. Ha, what an amusing paradox. It feels relieving somehow. I light up yet another cigarette and think about how my family had broke up with me...It is all a blur now that I come to think about it.. I tell Jay. 'It has been almost a month ago, our "break of indefinite length." I can't remember it well. We all should have been happy. Somehow, amongst all of the drinking and partying, a fight between me and Zillah had erupted. Soon everyone around me was arguing. One thing led to another, and before I knew it, I tried to hit Zillah, and I got kicked out. I haven't been back since.'

An awkward silence fell between us.

Clearing my throat, I drew my thin legs up underneath my body, curling them at the knees and sitting atop them.

My smile was thin, strangling me. 'Nothing?'

His voice trembles a bit.

"Yeah?"  
"I miss you."  
I almost start to cry. "I miss you, too."  
"I mean, you and the others were my best friends, and we haven't even spoken since this thing happened. I miss the gang. I miss being with us. I miss the blood. I miss it all!"  
"So do I, Jay! But what can we do? I have been thrown out too."  
"I don't know...."  
"Yeah..."  
"Are you happy, Nothing?"  
Should I lie or tell the truth? Telling the truth makes you vulnerable, but lying is weak. I'll go for vulnerable any day. "No," I admit softly.  
"Neither am I," he whispers in response. "Uh, listen, I've gotta go now. Bye."  
He runs off before I can reply.

Pale eyes shifted towards Zillah, questioning the enigma that sat on the end of the furniture. A harsh, green glare was his response, and truth to be told, he had not expected much less from his father. After all, the anger had not faded yet, the edges still crisp and awaiting to slice the delicate flesh, peeling it back with its cruel razors. Clearing my throat, I stretched my legs, and sat on top of them.

'Listen.' I said. 

He remained silent. 

  



End file.
